The Powers That Be: Daily

C.E.O. Eric Shanks joins John to gush about the World Cup and Fox’s decade-long investment in soccer. He discusses his biggest surprises, Fox’s always-on approach to coverage, Zlatan Ibrahimović’s unlikely TV career, the controversial hydration breaks, the looming 2030 rights war, and more.

Matt Belloni joins Peter with the scoop on where Luca Guadagnino’s big OpenAI movie is landing after Amazon dropped it. Matt also digs into the surprisingly strong box office numbers in 2026, and why Hollywood is on pace to have its most profitable year since the pandemic.

Julia Ioffe joins Peter with fresh reporting on J.D. Vance’s increasingly pointed criticism of Israel as the U.S. works through its ceasefire deal with Iran, explaining how Vance is playing to a nationalist populist base that’s grown deeply skeptical of American involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Julia Alexander joins Peter to explain why A24—cinephiles’ favorite studio—just struck a $75 million partnership with Google’s DeepMind. The studio's fanbase is alarmed, but Julia makes the case for why fears of a sellout are premature, at least for now. Then she turns to Comcast’s decision to spin off NBCUniversal and breaks down which NBC properties are most likely to catch Netflix’s eye.

Dylan Byers joins Peter to make sense of Comcast’s bombshell decision to spin off NBCUniversal—including NBC News, Peacock, Bravo, and much more—after 15 years in the content business. Dylan discusses the strategic thinking behind the move and addresses the elephant in the room: while Netflix, Amazon, and Apple would love the I.P. and content libraries, nobody in streaming wants to inherit a linear business.

Jon Kelly rejoins Peter to discuss the fallout stemming from Matt Belloni’s scoop about Amazon’s decision to dump ‘Artificial.’ Then the duo hypothesize about why The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro’s media company, suddenly needs so much cash.

FanDuel President Christian Genetski joins John to talk shop about World Cup engagement, the sports betting scandals putting the industry under a microscope, and FanDuel’s foray into prediction markets. Genetski addresses the looming transparency and regulation questions head-on, and explains how he’s threading the needle between legal complexities and a consumer appetite that's only intensifying.

Bill Cohan joins Peter to explain why Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies are plummeting, and whether big investors in the crypto space are risking too much by holding on. Then he breaks down the price drop in SpaceX, which made a splashy I.P.O. debut just over a week ago, but has since come back down to earth.

Dylan Byers joins Peter to dig into the rekindled tensions between The New York Times and The Athletic over the Times’ investigation into Dianna Russini, whose secret relationship with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel turned into salacious tabloid fodder. Dylan also weighs in on the potential CBS-CNN merger and what kind of leader it will take to navigate the transition.

John Ourand joins Peter to revel in the World Cup’s TV ratings bonanza, and why all the haters were wrong. Then John weighs into YouTube’s relentless pursuit of a marquee sports rights deal—and whether the platform is on the verge of becoming a genuine player or just phoning it in.